


The Softer Side of Sears

by flippyspoon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, General, Homophobic Language, racist language (nothing that hasn’t been said in canon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: Billy on the other side of bullying.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Lucas Sinclair
Comments: 30
Kudos: 127





	The Softer Side of Sears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ihni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihni/gifts).



Billy’s lifeguarding job at the Hawkins Community Pool felt like a lifetime ago, but sometimes he missed sitting up in that high chair, observing everyone and making demands of the patrons who were forced to cower beneath the force of his whistle.

Nobody cowered now. He didn’t even want them too. Now it was usually Billy doing the cowering.

Most of the time, he kept to himself. But on a sunny Sunday afternoon, he was forced to go clothes shopping. Susan had handed him a credit card and pleaded with him to replace some of his threadbare shirts. 

The notion of Susan Mayfield entrusting him with her credit card made Billy dizzy. He briefly wondered if she was under some kind of mind control herself. But then, Susan had been so nice lately since Neil had gone. So nice, he wasn’t sure what to do about it, so he kept himself busy fixing things around the house.

There was a new mall in Roanoke. 

Billy took the newly repaired Camaro out, Susan’s card shoved in his jeans pocket. 

He flipped around from FM station to FM station and settled on Boston, which was nothing he’d listened to in years. For some reason, “More Than a Feeling” reminded him of Steve Harrington. But then, nearly any song could remind Billy of Steve Harrington.

Sears was, blessedly, not crowded.

Still, the options seemed both underwhelming and overwhelming. 

He didn’t dress the way he’d used to. He covered up his scars with t-shirts worn over thermals, even when it was hot. He no longer unbuttoned shirts right down to  _ there _ . But the t-shirts were getting old and some of the nicer ones he never wore because of bad memories which plagued him more than they ever had before.

Billy chewed his lip and stuck his hands in his pockets, listlessly wandering around the man’s section and looking for the right clothes. 

The problem was that he didn’t quite know who he was anymore. That made clothes shopping difficult. 

He had almost decided on a chambray shirt when he heard a young woman’s voice behind him and his ears perked up. 

She sounded exactly like Heather. 

She sounded so much like Heather that Billy dropped the shirt and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. 

That was when things started moving. 

Racks of clothes twisted, people stared at him, and the walls seemed to melt.

He could swear he heard the Shadow’s voice in his head.

Kill them…kill them all…

The flayed were walking.

Billy stumbled out of the men’s section, sweat already dripping from his temples.

The Roanoke Plaza was suddenly Starcourt. The monster wanted him to kill the girl and all her friends including Max and-

Everything was a blur around him until he finally, mercifully, found the glowing green EXIT sign above a heavy door. He pushed it open and staggered out to the parking lot behind the mall, sucking in fresh air. He almost tripped over his own feet finding a quiet spot where he could hide in an alcove and smoke a cigarette while he waited until he could stop shaking.

_ Tell me what you want, Billy _ , Dr. Owens had said during their last session.

“I want…I want to be better than my father.”

“You can do that,” Dr. Owens had assured him. “Every day you’re still alive, you can get up in the morning and be better than your father.”

The thought seemed liberating at the time.

But how could he manage being a good person when he could barely manage living at all? 

“Fuckin’ nutcase,” he mumbled around his cigarette, taking a deep drag. 

He almost didn’t hear the sound of the high school kids because a car pulling out honked at somebody. But then there were four boys he recognized as Hawkins High kids a couple years behind him, hooting and jumping around, heading to an old red Mustang. They were close and Billy ducked back into the shadows and hoped they couldn’t see him. 

“Hey, midnight!” One of them hollored.

Billy frowned and couldn’t see who they were talking to. But one of the boys ran off and came stumbling back, dragging a gangly younger boy by his collar.

It was Lucas Sinclair.

Billy clenched his jaw.

“I thought I saw you!” The kid laughed. All the other boys laughed. “Where’re your faggot nerd friends, midnight?”

“Shut the hell up!” Lucas spat. “Asshole!” He shoved and struggled and Billy remembered what a fighter Lucas Sinclair was. That much had always been obvious.

_ Every day you’re still alive. _

Billy dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out with his boot. The cherry glowed orange in the moonlight before as the cigarette flipped end over end before it hit the ground and died. 

Billy summed up the old nerve he hadn’t felt in so long.

“HEY, DICKWEEEDS!” Billy’s shout thundered through the parking lot, echoing. 

Everyone froze and stared up at him: the Hawkins freak. If Will Byers was Zombie Boy, there wasn’t a word for what Billy was. Strangers spoke of him in whispers.

His hair was just beginning to grow out from its military hospital enforced buzz. There was a striking scar along his cheek and another darker one at his temple. That was outside of the scars on the back of his hands and only Billy and a few doctors knew what was under his clothes. 

He loomed over them in his boots and jeans, his sweatshirt hood low over his eyes.

It was nearly dusk and his shadow was long on the pavement.

“Get your hands off Sinclair,” Billy rumbled. “Or I end all of you.”

The boys surrounding Lucas were still as mannequins, gaping at him with big eyes. 

Billy bared his teeth and growled and they all gasped and dashed away. If it had been a cartoon, they might have left a trail of smoke behind them. Lucas stumbled when his attackers let him go and Billy caught him before he fell to the ground. Just as quickly, he let Lucas go and sighed, leaning up against a brown Datsun. He lit himself another cigarette just to have something to do.

“Uh. Thanks. Billy.” Lucas nodded at him and straightened his shirt. 

“What are you doin’ out here alone, Sinclair?” Billy said. 

“Hey, I’m fourteen, I can go to the mall,” Lucas said, bristling slightly. He was nearly as tall as Billy now, but the way he got all defensive only made him seem younger and Billy smirked. “Anyway. I’m not alone. My mom and my sister are here, and Dustin. I just came to get my mom’s wallet from the car. She said maybe it fell out of her purse.” He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and dangled it in front of Billy. 

“Oh.” Billy nodded. “Well, let’s get it then. Get you back before Henderson thinks I-”

“Lucas!” 

But there he was. Dustin Henderson raced across the parking lot. Except that Dustin Henderson couldn’t run very fast. It was more like an awkward lope, his cap half falling off his head and a backpack bouncing off his shoulder as he skidded over. 

He stopped short and squinted up at Billy with suspicion if not disdain. “What’re you doing here?”

“Pfft. He just saved my ass,” Lucas said, as casual as anything. “Scottie and his stupid toadies-”

“Ugh. I hate that guy.” Dustin winced and said to Billy, “He gave me a swirly.”

“Yeah, it was like a comic!” Lucas said, his eyes lighting up. “Hargrove comes up with his hoodie over his eyes like  _ get away from Sinclair or I end you _ !” He pulled off an exaggerated impression and cackled. “It was like Punisher or something.”

“Whatever,” Billy mumbled. It felt odd to be on the nice side of things.

But he didn’t hate it either.

“Did you get the wallet?” Dustin said.

“Just a sec!” Lucas jogged over to a red Volvo and hollered over his shoulder, “Hargrove! Come get an Orange Julius with us!”

“Me?” Billy said. “Uh. Okay?”

“This is so weird,” Dustin said, shaking his head. A car door slammed and Lucas came skidding back over, the wallet in hand. “Just...hanging out with Billy Hargrove. Billy Hargrove rescuing Lucas from bullies. Too weird.”

“Yeah,” Lucas said with a snort. “Wait’ll Steve finds out.”

“Steve?” Billy’s ears perked up and he stubbed out his cigarette and followed the boys back to the mall. “What about Steve?”

“Well, he talks about you  _ all _ the time,” Dustin said, rolling his eyes. “He’ll love this.”

“He...he talks about me all the time?”

Lucas grabbed the sleeve of his hoodie and tugged gently as they headed for the mall. “C’mon, hurry up. Before my mom sends out a search party. There’s always a line at Orange Julius.”

“I like Orange Julius,” Billy murmured. “Does...Steve like Orange Julius?”

“Yeah, but he likes it with strawberry,” Dustin said. 

“Hmm.” Billy nodded. That little tidbit of information was satisfying. He relaxed a little and slipped his hands in his pockets. “I’m supposed to be buying new clothes. I hate Sears.”

“Sears?” Lucas raised an eyebrow at him and pushed open the front door, a wave of cool air conditioning just about bowling Billy over. “Why didn’t you go to the Miller’s Outpost.”

“I didn’t see a Miller’s?” Billy said. “I would’ve gone to Miller’s.”

“We’ll show you,” Dustin said, sighing heavily as if a great chore had been bestowed upon him. “Geez. How did you ever manage without us, Hargrove?”


End file.
